A B.Y.O.B. Peking Duck Feast With Some of New York’s Top Sommeliers

Slide Show|11 Photos

BYOB

BYOB

CreditPaul Quitoriano

Last Thursday, Chinatown blazed in a noontime swelter as some of the city’s top sommeliers filed into the Peking Duck House on Mott Street. Each had a thing or two tucked under his or her arm — bottles of wine from their personal collections. Michael Madrigale, Bar Boulud’s head sommelier, entered with a 2007 Albert Boxler Riesling Grand Cru Brand ($50). Ashley Santoro, the wine director at Narcissa, came with a 1974 Francesco Rinaldi & Figli Barolo from Piedmont, Italy (about $115 retail). Patrick Cappiello was waiting for the sommeliers — eight, in all — with a magnum of Savart Premier Cru L’Accomplie Brut Champagne ($80). As the wine director for Rebelle and Pearl & Ash, sister restaurants on Bowery, Cappiello convenes these impromptu lunches about once a month, whenever the time allows. There are only two rules: Bring an intriguing bottle of wine; and keep it to around $100 each.

The tradition began 25 years ago with two of Cappiello’s mentors, Daniel Johnnes and David Gordon, who worked within walking distance at the now-closed Montrachet and the TriBeCa Grill. “We used to bring customers who we’d enjoy spending a little time with,” Johnnes says. In 2001, Gordon extended a Peking Duck House lunch invite to Cappiello, then brand-new to New York and working for Gordon as a waiter. The guest list — originally “just four or five of us,” says Capiello — has grown as the ranks of the city’s sommeliers have swelled. But not much else has changed, including the four-course menu.

At last week’s lunch, glasses swirled even before plates of garlic lobster hit the table. Cappiello brought a 1992 Eitelsbacher Karthauserhof ($40) to accompany the meal, served in Riedel glasses he brought from his restaurant (having deemed the in-house glasses unacceptable). Conversation quickly took an oeno-nerd turn. “This is a Riesling with a little age on it and you can smell what people describe as petrol,” said Bryn Birkhahn, head sommelier at Pearl & Ash. “I call it ‘rubber ducky.’”

More pairings included a 2009 Rebholz Pinot Blanc (about $50) courtesy of the TriBeCa Grill veteran David Gordon, with lightly battered, deep-fried shrimp, and a 30-year Hidalgo Napolean Amontillado brought by Ashley Santoro of the Standard East Village and Narcissa that made a perfect mate for honeyed spareribs.

But the star of the show was the duck, and as the group prepared for the main course, an ah-so — a two-pronged gadget used to guide dusty corks from aged bottles — appeared alongside purple-stained corks. The ceremony was befitting for Santoro’s Barolo and a rare 1985 Albert Dervieux-Thaize Cote-Rotie (around $100) from Le District’s beverage director, Ryan Mills-Knapp. The table hushed while the wine experts wrapped thin pancakes around slices of duck with hoison sauce and scallion shards. The silence, like the duck, didn’t last long.

For the sommeliers, the meals offer a chance to commiserate, but also to pour esoteric wines for friends sure to appreciate them. “As a young sommelier you don’t have a lot of money, and you spend the money you have buying all these precious bottles,” says Cappiello. “You want to share them with as many people as possible.”